


A Joy Shared

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2012-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-15 12:13:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt was having the <i>best</i> day.</p><p>spoilers through 4x03 (“Makeover”), none beyond</p><p>This is a mirror piece to the Blaine-centric <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/523806">“Parts of Speech”</a> - I believe either story makes sense on its own, but if you do read both I recommend Blaine’s first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Joy Shared

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Deutsch available: [A Joy Shared -- Geteilte Freude](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12041766) by [Klaineship](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Klaineship/pseuds/Klaineship)



Kurt all but danced across the vogue.com office, his weight shifting easily on the balls of his feet as he scooped his bag out of the lower drawer of his desk and collected his jacket from the tiny closet beside it. He closed the closet door with a careful click, leaned over the back of his chair to shut down his computer (with his foot kicked up behind him only a few restrained inches off the floor), and tried not to skip toward the elevator. He had to maintain _some_ kind of professional demeanor and dignity. This job was really important to him. He couldn’t act like he was demented.

This job wasn’t just important, in fact; it was _amazing_. He could barely breathe with how excited he was about it. It was going so _well_.

“Bye, Kurt,” Isabelle said with a smile as she walked by, scrolling through something on her phone. “I’m moving the layout meeting to nine tomorrow, by the way, so be prepared for a big coffee order first thing. And very ungrateful recipients.”

“I’ll be ready,” he promised. He wondered if he should pick an outfit without a tie tomorrow to be sure he didn’t dip it into anything when he was leaning over while serving people in the conference room if they weren’t going to be awake enough to keep their cups in safe places. It might be the day for his new Givenchy shirt to make an appearance. “Have a good night.”

“You, too,” she said in that warm way of hers, and his good mood got even giddier.

It was ironic how getting coffee had gone from being a torture to a gift in a few short weeks. Before it had been a symbol of him being stuck going nowhere in Lima, and now it was his entrée into all of the most important meetings. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, actually, because Isabelle liked his ideas, she liked _him_ , and she wanted him there for more than coffee.

He still couldn’t believe it. She _liked_ him. He was only an intern, but she was talking about him like she saw that he was destined for great things there or wherever he went.

She was one of the first people outside of his family - besides Blaine, of course - who had ever felt that way about him, and his heart pounded in his chest, a smile blooming wide on his face, as he thought about it. Oh, god, it was _incredible_. It was nothing like but _exactly_ like he had always dreamed New York would be.

He was so _happy_ he could barely contain it.

The elevator dinged, and the doors parted to reveal a chic older woman standing inside. He tried to get control of his expression as he joined her, wrapping his fingers around his phone in his pocket instead of pulling it out the way he wanted to. He had to stay calm.

It had been the _best_ day. He couldn’t wait to tell Blaine all about it. He just had to get out of the front doors of the building so that this woman, who could be _anyone_ , wouldn’t overhear him stumbling over his words in his excitement and then turn out to be some important editor who would go straight to Isabelle and tell her to fire him because they didn’t need lunatics or naive children working there. He had to wait until he was outside before he could let his feelings out.

It was well past the rush hour crush, but the elevator seemed to stop at pretty much every floor to let people on; he moved to the side, kept his eyes on the numbers as they descended, and tried not to bounce out of his shoes with his need to be out on the street.

As much as Kurt wished the trip weren’t taking so long, he wasn’t really surprised by how busy the building still was. He had only been working at vogue.com for a little while, but he’d already realized that no one kept anything like bankers’ hours there. Late nights, dinner meetings, and impromptu cocktails like he’d been invited to that night were common ways to keep the work going long after the day was supposed to be over. Clearly, the other offices in the building had similar ways of running things.

At least tonight he’d been kept late for a celebration, not that he particularly minded either way, because as great as it was to spend a night in the apartment with Rachel it wasn’t like he had all that much to fill up his life in New York besides enjoying the city itself. He didn’t have other friends yet or homework to complete. He wasn’t bored, he would never be bored, but he didn’t mind staving off his loneliness by wrapping himself up in the busy, creative world of vogue.com, especially when Isabelle was going out of her way over and over again to include him, to ask for his opinions, and to give him credit for his ideas when she liked them.

How he’d lucked out to have a fantastic boss like her he didn’t know, but he couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t.

The elevator finally opened on the lobby. Kurt let the other people out first and tried to walk with some dignity, but as soon as he was out of the door of the building he was thumbing on his phone and dialing Blaine’s number. He knew it was late. He knew he’d missed Blaine’s calls earlier when he just couldn’t excuse himself, because the last thing he could do when he was invited to stay and socialize was to give up the chance to establish himself more firmly in the office and instead give his boss and co-workers the deadly impression that he cared about his social life more than he did the incredible opportunity of being there at his age and level of inexperience. He knew he should probably wait until he got home and Skype him from there so he could see Blaine’s face and only have Rachel as a distraction instead of the neon-lit bustle of Times Square around him.

But it had been _such_ a good day, and he _had_ to share it with Blaine. He couldn’t wait.

He hurried down the sidewalk toward the subway, trying both to get out some of his overflowing energy and also not to get trampled by the crowds walking with him. The phone rang and rang, and he felt icy cold worry creep through him that Blaine had gone to bed, that he’d missed him entirely, that they wouldn’t be able to talk at all, but then just as Kurt was trying to compose himself to leave some sort of comprehensible voicemail Blaine picked up.

“Hello?” Blaine said. He was breathing a little hard, and there was a creaky rustling over the line like he was holding the phone with his shoulder.

“Blaine!” Kurt said in a rush, the hair on his arms rising with pleasure at the sound of Blaine’s voice. He didn’t have to leave a voicemail and pretend he wasn’t disappointed that he couldn’t share his day with Blaine; he could _talk_ to him. “Oh my god, Blaine, you won’t _believe_ what happened today!”

He heard Blaine take a slow breath before he said with a soft smile in his voice, “Tell me.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” Kurt said, dodging around a group of young men standing and talking in the middle of the sidewalk. “Okay, yes, I do. Do you know who came into the office today?” He didn’t wait for Blaine to answer. He couldn’t. “Christian Siriano.” Blaine made a little noise. “I _know_. He was supposed to send over a couple of gowns for Isabelle to look at for that feature about the new look of tulle, but instead of having them couriered or brought by an assistant _he_ came by.”

“Wow,” Blaine said with an appropriate amount of shock and excitement.

“I think he wanted to meet her, you know? Network a little with the new editor of vogue.com? And so obviously Isabelle moved the staff meeting the second she saw him and invited him into her office instead, and guess who brought in coffee? Me. I brought Christian Siriano coffee!” Kurt had watched him work so hard on Project Runway, and he’d been in the same room with him. He’d _talked_ to him. He felt like he could float off the ground. “And then Isabelle asked me to stay! Officially I was there to take notes for her from his look book, but you know she could remember it all in her head. And a couple of times she asked me what I thought of this piece or that, and I mean obviously I had to say that I liked them, because he was sitting right there, and I’m not stupid. But I didn’t even have to lie! Christian Siriano, Blaine! And he complimented my _shoes_!”

“Kurt, that’s _amazing_ ,” Blaine told him.

Kurt stopped at the end of the block and waited for two policemen on horses to pass. He beamed up at the bright buildings of Times Square around him. He was in _New York_. This was his _life_. “I know,” he said, his smile so wide it hurt. He was so glad Blaine was there to talk to him, because he _understood_. Blaine knew him, and Blaine knew what it all meant to him. “Oh, god, it was incredible. I think if Michael Kors ever walks through the doors I’m going to faint.”

“I’m sure you won’t,” Blaine said with a little laugh.

“Well, maybe not faint,” Kurt agreed, “but I might lose the ability to speak.” He skirted a puddle of highly unsavory water.

“That would be bad enough.”

Kurt laughed, too. “It would.” He pressed the phone a little tighter against his cheek, like he could get closer to Blaine that way. “And that was only the tip of the iceberg today. Isabelle had me sit in the pitch meeting again, and then she asked me to stay for cocktails tonight with some of the staff.”

“You... stayed for cocktails tonight?”

“I had water,” Kurt said to appease the worry and confusion in Blaine’s voice. “But it was great, even if I kept having to make sure I was laughing in the right places, because - and I can’t believe I’m saying this - there’s so much I don’t know yet!”

“That’s why you’re there, right?” Blaine said slowly. “To learn?”

“That and fetch coffee.” Kurt reached the entrance to the subway and paused at the edge of the stairs, not ready to end the call. There was so much more to say, and he wanted to tell Blaine about all of it. He wanted Blaine to be a part of everything, to know about everything. “But not forever. And Isabelle invited me to her yoga-lates class, too! I mean, I’ll probably have to eat only ramen to afford it or maybe not buy that new sweater... no, that’s crazy, of course I have to have the sweater, but yoga-lates? With her? I will find a way.”

“I’m sure you will,” Blaine said in that wonderful supportive way he always had, the one that made Kurt feel like he wasn’t alone in thinking he could achieve every goal he put his mind to, like he wasn’t the least bit crazy to be trying. He wished he could still see that look in Blaine’s warm eyes in person every day, but at least they had this much.

“I have to,” Kurt agreed. “Besides, I could use the workout with all of the pizza and Chinese Rachel has been ordering in on her nights.”

“She still hasn’t figured out how to cook?”

“No,” Kurt said. “She’s trying, but I wouldn’t call it _cooking_.”

“Yeah, I remember the cookies she made right before she left,” Blaine said with distaste.

Kurt laughed; he’d almost forgotten how awful they were with their rock-hard charred exteriors and gooey raw dough centers. “I think I’d blocked them out. I can’t believe I’m sharing a kitchen with someone who actually tried to serve us something like that. If I die of salmonella or botulism or something, I hope you’ll always remember I loved you. And use that picture from brunch this summer as the one you keep on your bedside shrine to me. You know, the one where my hair was so good.”

“You want me to have a shrine to - You know what?” Blaine interrupted himself. “Why don’t you just not get botulism?”

“You’ll have to speak to Rachel about that.” Kurt stepped aside as a group of women all wearing tiaras and feather boas passed where he was standing, and he became a little more aware of the busy city around him. The street wasn’t filled with the daytime crowds of well-dressed workers and not-so-well-dressed tourists but instead couples and groups done up for the evening and getting out of dinner or a play. The city was changing with the hour, truly shifting into the rhythms of night, so completely different from the familiar doldrums of Lima. “Speaking of,” he said with a sigh, tugging his jacket more securely around him, “I should probably get on a train home.”

“Oh,” came Blaine’s quiet reply after a moment. He sounded disheartened, disappointed. “Okay. I thought - I mean - ”

Kurt knew just how he felt; he wasn’t ready to be done talking, either, but his apartment wasn’t exactly close, and it was getting late enough that his whole evening routine was going to be compressed as it was so that he could get enough sleep that he wasn’t all puffy-eyed in the morning when he had to wake up for work.

He took a few steps toward the subway entrance, moving away from a disheveled, probably drunk man in a suit. He really needed to be heading home, back to his little corner of sanity - _relative_ sanity, because as much as he loved living with Rachel, she was still Rachel - in the crazy and still sometimes overwhelming city around him, even if it meant giving up the best and most stable anchor in his daily life, Blaine’s voice on the other end of the line. 

“Look, can I call you when I get there?” he asked, turning in against the wall and speaking more softly. He knew it wasn’t exactly the most selfless request in the world, because Blaine had school, but this had barely been enough time to say anything to each other. He knew Blaine also had news to share. “I know it’s late, but will you be up? We can talk while we moisturize?”

“I - “ Blaine blew out a slow breath, and Kurt held his own, hoping. “Sure, Kurt. Call me when you’re home.”

“Great.” Kurt’s smile burst out of him, full of relief and joy. “Thank you. I just really want to tell you everything.” And hear everything, of course, that was a given.

“I know,” Blaine said softly. “Me, too. I’ll be here.”

“Okay. I love you!” Kurt barely waited for Blaine’s reply in kind before he had pocketed his phone and was clattering down the steps toward the subway. There was no sense in lingering a second longer than was necessary.

The faster he was home, the sooner he could be talking to Blaine again. Everything in Kurt’s life was better when he got to share it with him.

**Author's Note:**

> As a reminder, I am spoiler-free, so please don't spoil me for anything upcoming if you leave a comment! Thanks! <3


End file.
